The Battle for Syria

Algemeiner

A Syrian rebel military leader said Wednesday that it would be logical for Israel to know whether or not the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons because they have “many, many” security personnel inside Syria.

“Israel has this information because there are many, many members of security services who are now very active in Syria,” Free Syrian Army Chief of Staff General Salim Idriss told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Mossad is one of the most famous security services in the world and I don’t think they are away.”

Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence Research Branch, Brig. Gen. ltay Baron, said Assad has used lethal chemical weapons, mostly sarin gas, against armed rebels several times in the past few weeks, and is continuing to do so.

Baron said that photographs showing victims in Syria with foam coming out of their mouths and contracted pupils were signs that deadly gas had been used. “We took some samples of the soil and of blood. The injured people were observed by doctors and the samples were tested and it was very clear that the regime used chemical weapons,” Idriss told Amanpour.

Idriss said his doctors gave the samples to “observers” of the civil war in Syria, but refused to name which groups. Both Britain and France now say soil samples indicate “some use of chemical weapons.”

Zach Pontz writes for The Algemeiner, from where this article isadapted